As noted here late last night, BigGov posted James O’Keefe’s and Hannah Giles’s latest video yesterday. It totally nuked claims by ACORN National and ACORN Philly that O’Keefe and Giles had been “shown the door” and “kicked out” after a “few minutes” in their Philly Office visit — claims that establishment media outlets and the Obama-ACORN apparatchiks at Media Matters for America continued to repeat even, as shown in the excerpt that follows, after ACORN was proven to have lied about what happened in New York City and San Diego.

Billy Hallowell at BigGovernment.com has a great recap of the not well-known ACORN and media goofs that have occurred since James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles released their first two sting videos (links are in original):

The mainstream media were complicit in their coverage of the ACORN scandal. Their behavior was and continues to be an insult to democracy and journalistic responsibility as the Fourth Estate has ignored facts, engaged in one-sided sourcing, and avoided basic and inherently important journalistic questioning.

…. there were cases of gratuitously sloppy journalism. Some of the outlets that did cover the story simply skipped over basic interview questions. In several instances, Bertha Lewis made the false claim that the filmmakers were turned away in “dozens of cities.” In a CNN interview with Rick Sanchez, Lewis said, “…the filmmakers went to dozens of offices. They were turned away.” In a more flagrant example of corroborating untruths, Lewis reiterated her “dozens” on MSNBC, stating, “…They were thrown out of dozens of offices. And, in fact, in Philadelphia, we called the police, filed a police report.”

Similarly, Wolf Blitzer, failed to adequately question Lewis. While on his show, Lewis made the following statement: “This sort of notorious crew went around to dozens of our offices. What you don’t see are the offices that threw them out… offices that filed police complaints.”

The lack of depth of these interviews with Lewis has been egregious. Upon hearing of the “dozens,” even the most unseasoned journalist would know to ask, “What were the cities where filmmakers were thrown out?” And, what about the police reports (plural) that were filed by multiple “offices”? Like Sanchez’s treatment of the “dozens,” Blitzer failed to ask for a list of cities that took such action. Lewis was granted a free pass, as no probing questions were asked about the issues in question.

…. On Sept. 12, just two days after the Maryland tape was made public, Lewis released a statement on ACORN’s Web site, writing, “This recent scam, which was attempted in San Diego, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, Philadelphia to name a few places, had failed for months before the results we’ve all recently seen.”

Following subsequent video releases, New York and San Diego were dropped from ACORN’s list of cities where the filmmakers were allegedly “turned away” and the aforementioned statement was removed from ACORN’s Web site, thus erasing evidence of inconsistency.

Along the way, as Hallowell notes, both the Associated Press and the Washington Post smeared O’Keefe with a false charge of racism and then quietly corrected those assertions after their slanderous seeds had been planted (sound familiar?).

But the press let Bertha Lewis tell the same lie all over again (bold is mine):

Despite the fact that Bertha Lewis’ credibility had been completely compromised on September 14th with with the release of the New York ACORN investigation (not to mention the San Diego videos released on Sept. 17), she was granted a forum with The National Press Club on Oct. 6; the conference was broadcast on C-SPAN. In that presser, Lewis used the debunked information from the Associated Press and Washington Post articles that had since been corrected. Yes, the NPC gave her a platform to continue touting untruths that were previously purveyed by the supine media.She said, “O’Keefe, himself, told The Washington Post, ‘They’re registering too many minorities. They usually vote Democratic. Somebody’s got to stop them’…”

… The ACORN story has, once again, shown the media’s inability to fulfill its duties.

The National Press Club still has the video of Lewis’s lying October 6 speech at its site without any hint of its proven shortcomings.

At the beginning of that video, you’ll see an introduction of Lewis by Bloomberg’s Jonathan D. Salant that sounds more like a talking press release than the “we’ve asked her to come here to defend herself” introduction that would have been appropriate in the circumstances.

That the slanted Salant would make such a fawning introduction should not surprise anyone familiar with his work. This is the same guy who tried to turn lemonades into lemons in early October by pretending that a Quinnipiac poll showing that voters oppose ObamaCare was still good news.

3 Comments

You’re right. It does keep getting better and better. These two are pure geniuses. Anyway, I clicked on the NPC video link you provided. The page is still there but the “video window” has nothing in it except that little red x mark in the upper left corner. I right clicked and the menu did not offer a selection to manually open the video. In fact a click on the “properties” showed that the “video” had been created and modified on October 22nd, which, surprise, just happens to be today! Go, team go!

z Pol-Party-Lobby Sites z

Unclassified

Comments

Comments are welcome, but are moderated.
Posting of comments is not immediate, and may take up to 24 hours.
Comment posting, as well as possible deletion, isat the sole discretion of BizzyBlog.
Allowing a comment to be posted does not constitute agreement with it, or endorsement of it.

-----------------------------

S.O.B. Alliance

SOB Alliance posts

Testimonials

"(ACORN) says it provide lots of services for poor people, but a recent NewsBusters post by Tom Blumer exposes the hollow facts behind the claims."